Another Night
by Emma Arthur
Summary: After they manage to get Clarice stabilized in 1x02, Marcos finds John slightly worse for the wear.


Stuck trying to reassure the Strucker family that they will do everything they can to get Reed back, Marcos doesn't get to speak to his friends until the cleanup of headquarters is well underway. There are pieces of rubble strewn across the floor, and plenty of furniture to be repaired or thrown away, so everyone who can is hard at work, hoping to have a livable place again by nighttime.

He finds Sonya and Sage first, in the miraculously untouched computer room.

"You both okay?" he asks, hugging them quickly. After the events of the day, they all need some kind of reassurance.

Marcos tries to shut down the voice at the back of his head that says he's the one who put them all in danger. He's the one who went alone to find the Struckers, who forced John and Clarice to come to their rescue. Without his rash decisions, Clarice would never have overextended herself.

"We're fine," Sonya nods.

"Anyone get hurt?"

"Not beyond a few cuts and bruises. Clarice seems to be doing better, thanks to you and Mrs Strucker. She's resting."

"Good," Marcos says, averting his eyes. "Where's John?"

Sonya points to a spot across from the large hole in the floor, where John is picking up large pieces of the wall that have crushed several camp beds. "He hasn't stopped since he got Clarice settled."

Marcos sighs. John might have a mutation that means very little can affect his body, but he still needs rest and sleep, especially after a day like today. Marcos certainly knows that however worried he is for Lorna, he's exhausted enough that he'll fall asleep as soon as his head hits a pillow. But then John has never payed attention to his own limits.

"I'll go talk to him."

"Thank you," Sonya says. "He listens to you more than he does me."

"You knows that's not true," Marcos says.

John and Sonya's aborted relationship is not common knowledge, but John is Marcos's best friend. He knows how they still feel about each other. "I know," Sonya says quietly. "It just feels like it sometimes."

Marcos gives her a knowing look and a small smile before heading out of the room.

He doesn't bother to give John a heads-up of his presence, even though he approaches him from behind, because John's abilities mean he's never surprised. Clasping his shoulder tightly, though, makes John hiss in pain. Marcos recoils, frowning.

"John? What is it?"

"Nothing," John says, putting down the pieces of the bed he's trying to put back together and turning toward Marcos. "Just some bruises, I didn't even realize. You good?"

"Yeah," Marcos answers.

Despite his body's extraordinary resistance, John can get hurt, and given his propensity to protect everyone around him, he rarely does things halfway. "Even got some real stitches," Marcos adds, taking a step back to observe his friend.

"Mine weren't good enough?" John smiles, but the banter feels forced.

"You're bleeding," Marcos frowns, pointing to his friend's leg.

"Damn," John mutters, looking down. "Thought that would have stopped by now."

"What did that?"

"The Sentinel spider. But it's nothing, just a few cuts, I think."

"John, it's been hours. You didn't even have a look at it?"

"No time," John says curtly, and he turns back to the bed he's repairing.

"Well, you have time now," Marcos says. "You're coming with me."

"I need to finish this."

"No you don't. This can wait. Come on."

John looks at him again, for the first time truly concentrating on Marcos, and relents. "Fine. My room," he says, straightening up.

Marcos doesn't want to think of how much effort it must take his friend not to limp, as he follows him across the floor. He knows John feels the need to project an image of indestructibility around the more vulnerable mutants they shelter here, so that they feel safe, but he can't help wishing it didn't so often come at the cost of his health.

He can't count the number of times he's found John still at his desk in the early hours of the morning, working on maps and plans, only to spend the day running around hiding his exhaustion. The times he's patched up his friend in secret, and watched him act like he was completely fine to everyone else. The single time he's caught him grieving, his face in his hands and his shoulders shaking, hidden away in his room, after Pulse didn't make it back from a mission. He'd dried his face before Marcos could walk into the room fully and hadn't spoken to him the rest of the day.

Marcos goes to get the first aid kit before he joins John in his bedroom. John has had time to remove his pants, which are lying on the floor beside him. Most of his right leg is black and blue and covered in blood.

"Sit down," Marcos says, opening the kit.

"Don't want to bleed on the sheets," John says. "We don't have enough of them as it is."

"Right, then let me get some towels."

John's incredible body density doesn't keep him from bruising and hurting, but few things can actually get through his skin. The Sentinel Spider must have been even stronger than Marcos thought to make him bleed, let alone for this long.

Carefully cleaning off the blood, Marcos understands. What he thought were shallow cuts in his friend's calf are actually puncture wounds. Even John's skin isn't built to resist a point-first knife attack, and the spider's legs were razor sharp. Still, it has to have been stronger than a bullet at full speed to get through.

John doesn't even flinch at Marcos's ministrations, though his fists are clutching at the bed sheets. Thankfully the wounds are neither very deep not large, because there's nothing Marcos can do beyond clean and bandage them. John's skin is too thick for stitching needles to go through−beside the fact that John is the only one, apart maybe from Caitlin, who knows how to stitch up a wound.

"What's that?" Marcos asks, pointing to the skin around one of the spots that aren't bleeding anymore. It looks raw like it's been burned, though John probably can't get blisters.

"Spider was made of metal," John says. "When you burned it, it heated up. It's legs were still grappling me."

"Sorry," Marcos says, biting his lip.

"Don't be. I couldn't have gotten rid of it without you. Their weapons keep getting stronger, Marcos. I don't know how long we'll manage to keep them away."

"If Lorna had been there−"

"But she wasn't. And now even if we get her out of there, they know about her powers. They're adapting to us. Those spiders, they were made to stop someone like me. Next thing you know, they'll be heat resistant or something."

"We can't think like that," Marcos says. It sounds hollow, rehearsed against John's raw worry. Maybe he's just trying to get his own thoughts off Lorna and what she's going through right now.

"No we can't, I suppose," John says. "It's not like we have another solution." He shakes his head, and checks the bandage Marcos just finished rolling around his lower leg. There are still dark bruises visible, around his knee and his thigh, but John ignores them and stands up. "Thanks."

Marcos doesn't miss his wince when he bends down to pick up his pants. "Your back?"

"It's fine," John says.

"Let me have a look," Marcos insists. If he doesn't, no one will. Marcos is the only one John allows himself to show any weakness to, these days.

John relents and pulls his shirt over his head with another wince. The bruises on his back haven't had time to color yet, but Marcos can see a pattern in the angry red indentations in his left side.

"What was that?" he asks.

"The truck that came through Clarice's first portal," John says.

Marcos winces in sympathy. Getting hit straight on by even half a truck, running at full speed, would have killed anyone else.

"You couldn't get away?" Marcos realizes he didn't see John get hit because he scrambled for safety too fast, and as usual John just shrugged it off.

"I had to shield the kids."

"Your ribs are okay?"

"Yeah, I think so," John says, rolling his shoulders. There's no real point in trying to prod his chest, as his skin feels like rock anyway. "I'm fine. Don't worry, Marcos."

Marcos give him a half-smile, that turns out more like a grimace. "Gives me something to do."

John sighs. "We're going to figure something out for Lorna," he says.

"Maybe. As much as I want her back, I know you're right, John. We can't afford to lose anyone else."

"I don't think we can afford to lose Lorna, either," John shakes his head sadly.

He squeezes Marcos's shoulder and pulls his shirt back on, his moves barely stiffer than usual. Once more, Marcos wonders just how much pain John routinely hides from everyone. With bruises like that, he'd be in bed moaning. But John won't even take painkillers−Marcos knows better than to offer. They don't have much of a supply, and they barely do anything to John anyway. He'll just endure the pain, once again.

"I'll go check on Clarice," John says, looking through his stuff for a pair of pants that's not half-covered in blood.

"You need to rest," Marcos says. "When was the last time you slept?"

"Not sure," John shrugs, and winces when it pulls at his bruises. "Before we went to get Clarice, I think."

"John, that was two days ago."

"You know I don't need as much sleep as everyone else."

"That's not true. You've just trained yourself to stay awake until you drop, that's not the same thing. Have you at least eaten?"

John forgoes answering in favor of pulling on his new pants, but he won't look at Marcos, which tells him everything he needs to know.

Marcos sighs, knowing this is a battle he won't win. "Go sit with Clarice," he says. "I'll get you something to eat."

John doesn't limp on the way to Clarice's bed, he doesn't show his tiredness or his pain when he sits on the next bed. And if he stays a little too long lost in his thoughts when Marcos brings him dinner, or if he misjudges his own strength and bends the fork backward before he comes back to the present, Marcos doesn't call him out on it.

He just watches over his friend through another night.

3


End file.
